<cite>The Playboy of the Western World</cite>, reviewed by Sam Thielman
Irish scribes from Brian Friel to Martin McDonagh have been writing variations on J.M. Synge's 1907 <cite>Playboy of the Western World</cite> for decades, but the venerable comedy rarely gets a Gotham staging. In almost any form, it's a show worth seeing, and the Pearl Theater's deliberately unshowy production hits several of the play's high notes. Helmer and new Pearl a.d. J.R. Sullivan sometimes confuses fidelity w…